


Walking in the Sun Once More

by Luthien



Series: Luthien does JB Week 2019 [1]
Category: Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Boats and Ships, Established Relationship, F/M, Fix-It, Ocean, Weather
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-01
Updated: 2019-10-01
Packaged: 2020-11-08 20:50:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,439
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20841821
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Luthien/pseuds/Luthien
Summary: Jaime and Brienne are on their way to Tarth from Winterfell, when a storm hits while they're at sea.For Day 1 of JB Week 2019





	Walking in the Sun Once More

**Author's Note:**

> This is part of a small fix-it universe of loosely connected ficlets that I've written in before. Basically, Jaime didn't go south to try to save Cersei, and he and Brienne are now together.
> 
> This one should stand alone fairly easily, but if you want to read the others, this comes between [A Momentous Day](https://archiveofourown.org/works/20091838) and [Love is in the Little Things](https://archiveofourown.org/works/20070313).
> 
> Thanks to Nire for audiencing and reassuring!

_All I do is pray the Lord above will let me _  
_Walk in the sun once more_

\- From 'Stormy Weather' by Lena Horne (and many others)

~

They arrive on Tarth after one of the shortest and most violent spring storms in living memory.

Jaime wouldn't have been surprised if their ship had been taken out by one of the monster waves that kept rearing up around them. Well, he wouldn't have been surprised or indeed been anything else at all by now, if that had come to pass. The fact that it hadn't come to pass… well.

He looks over at Brienne. She is sitting with her back to him, and all he can see is short blonde hair plastered against the back of her head—and then a long sweep of pale, freckled skin below as she finally divests herself of her saturated tunic. He takes in the familiar scars—he knows and loves them all most intimately—and notes the new red, raw patches that will crust over with scabs and bloom into bruises soon enough.

They would not be here, any of them, if not for her. Oh, Jaime did his part, too, memories of his boyhood spent messing about in boats on the Sunset Sea—and that one summer when he crewed on a fishing boat for a week before his father returned from King's Landing and put a stop to it—coming in useful for the first time since he joined Aerys' Kingsguard. But a man with a single hand can do only so much in any situation.

It is Brienne who made the difference today. Brienne, who took charge after the captain was knocked unconscious by a falling piece of broken mast. Brienne, who had shouted to him, "This is why they call it the Stormlands!" right before she shimmied up the main mast, a knife clamped between her teeth, to free the mainsail from tangled rigging. He had watched her progress, praying to whatever god might be listening, as he held on to the wheel with hand, arm, body and soul: "Don't let her fall. Father, Mother, Warrior, _Stranger_, don't let her fall."

And she hadn't fallen, though she'd been sliding as much as climbing by the time she made it back down to the deck, back to him. He'd wanted to grab her and kiss her and whisper words of relief into her wet and no doubt salty skin. But he hadn't. There was no time. They both had their duty. He had contented himself with a speaking look as she'd passed him, racing to the next mini crisis within the greater one. He'd thought she hadn't seen, hadn't noticed, but then she looked back over her shoulder at him—a look that spoke as loudly as his own. It had left Jaime feeling warm and so very alive, despite the storm and the night and the imminent threat of a cold, watery death. Even despite the freezing spray that arced across the quarterdeck and hit him in the face a moment later.

The ship had limped into port as the sun rose, the storm having blown itself away as quickly as it had arrived. The crew and the few passengers are as battered and water-logged as the ship itself, but they are alive, all of them. Thanks to Brienne.

"Let me wash and clean your back for you," he says, coming around the end of the bed to face her.

"What-" she begins, and then winces as she turns to look at him. She feels around behind her back, and winces again as her hand finds one of the grazes. "I didn't even notice." She says it with a wry little smile.

"So I'll send for water and wine?" he asks, but she shakes her head.

"Easier to wait until we're up at the Hall." She almost sounds nonchalant, her usual brisk and pragmatic self, but there's a tiny thread of something else lurking in her voice. She hides that sort of thing so well that probably only Jaime would ever notice it.

And of course he does notice it. There was never a hint of doubt in her face or voice or manner, the whole night through the storm, but now… Now they've arrived, and it's time to face… everything.

"Are you ready?" he asks, sitting down beside her on the edge of the bed.

Brienne doesn't pretend to wonder what he's talking about. She sighs. "I'll have to be."

"Your people will be glad to see their evenstar home and safe."

"_Our_ people," she reminds him, taking his hand and squeezing it, as if he is the one in need of reassurance. "Soon enough, anyway."

"_Not_ soon enough," he says, and gives her his practised devilish look, "but soon."

She rolls her eyes, just as he intended, but she can't quite stop a smile. The tension is gone from her, or mostly. He kisses her then, soft and slow, until she kisses him back and she's there with him, they're together, and nothing else matters.

It's only when they tumble backwards onto the bed together that Brienne pulls back.

"Not now," she says, but there's more than a hint of regret in her voice. "No time."

"If you say so, my lady Evenstar."

Brienne draws in a deep breath. "Jaime…"

"That's what I like to hear. My name on your lips, although I prefer a bit more enthus-" He stops, but only because a pillow hits him in the face.

Brienne is standing by the time Jaime rids himself of the pillow and sits up.

"I’m ready," she says. "As ready as I'll ever be."

Jaime gets to his feet. "You _are_ ready," he says, sincere and letting her see it.

"Thank you," she says, and there's the shine of tears in her eyes. "It will be strange, without my father here. He's always _been_ Tarth to me, as much as the people or even the island itself."

"I'll be here, beside you, all the way," he reminds her. "I'm not your father, but…" He can't help but grin. It's a bad habit of his, always finding the joke in any serious situation.

Brienne's lips twitch. "And just as well." But the light fades from her eyes a little.

Neither of them mentions Cersei, but her shade is there, just for a moment. When will Jaime ever learn to keep his mouth shut? Probably never. It's just as well that Brienne—mostly—sees past it to the truth of what he thinks and feels.

"Well then, my lady, you'd better get dressed and prepare to meet your people. They're probably lining up by the dock already."

"That's not how things work on Tarth," she tells him. The warm almost-humour is back in her voice, he's relieved to notice. "You'll discover that for yourself soon enough."

And there are those words again: soon enough. Soon. Brienne is already the evenstar, and soon enough… _soon_ Jaime will be her consort. It's not something, or somewhere, that he ever expected to reach, even if he'd lived this long, which he truly hadn't expected to.

He waits while Brienne changes into clean—and somehow dry—breeches and carefully slips another tunic on over her poor, abused skin.

She turns to him then, and holds out her hand. "Are you ready?" she asks.

Now that it's his turn to answer that question, Jaime finds to his surprise that his response comes easily. He doesn't hesitate. He doesn't want to and he doesn't need to. For the first time in his life, it feels like he's in the right place, that he's found _his_ right place.

"Yes, I'm ready." He raises her hand to his lips and kisses her knuckles, scraped raw and beautiful.

Brienne colours, not the deep blush of their earliest acquaintance, but just a delicate, pleased flush. He could spend his life trying to draw that sort of response from her—could, and will.

Jaime follows Brienne out of the cabin, and up onto the deck, but they're side by side when they walk over to the starboard side, Brienne's hand reaching for and finding Jaime's, as they look out over Tarth. Side by side, just the way they should be. Just the way they'll always be, if Jaime has any say in the matter.

They've loved each other for years, long before they exchanged anything more than heated, longing looks, and have been part of each other's lives for even longer, and yet all of that only feels like the build-up to where they are now.

This is the beginning.


End file.
